


Deteriorating Orbit

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post Freelander Breakin, Project Freelancer, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They hear each others' hearts ache and poke at wounds like children prodding at loose teeth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deteriorating Orbit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Martienne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martienne/gifts).



"So…"

The voice is at his shoulder and North refuses to flinch, refuses to look back to look at the man he knows is there waiting. Can tell by the tone of his voice that York left his helmet behind somewhere, probably squeezed in between the frame of two seats to keep it from rolling around too much. Better to not think about that. Better to not think about a lot of stuff.

"I, uh… got South’s bleeding stopped."

North glances down at a readout, ignores the buzz of disappointment from Theta in the back of his head that says he shouldn’t be ignoring York like this. That they’re friends, aren’t they? Except the vague sensation that Theta sends North doesn’t really encapsulate the idea of friends so much as something more. A sense of togetherness. A sense of being whole in a way that even a twin couldn’t give him.

Theta had never known York as anything but another part of North, and that made this awkward.

"Thanks," North’s response is crisp, controlled, proper. It’s professional.

So, of course, York can’t leave it alone. York is the kind of guy that, mean it or not, goes for the sore wounds, pokes at them like a child poking a loose tooth with their tongue. After everything else, after what happened on the MoI in the attempt to get at the Alpha… Of course this is the one thing York pokes at. Not North choosing to shoot his own sister so he could drag her free of the crumbling ruins of the program, not York’s own failure to stop Carolina, not the confused and garbled news they’d picked up from the radio channels before they left the system.

This.

"You’re not talking to me," York observes dryly, and there is the familiar clunk of armor against metal and from the placement North’s pretty sure that means York’s leaning against a bit of wall or something. Definitely not climbing up into the gunner’s seat. North thinks he likes it better that way because he doesn’t have to have York quite as close as before.

"I’m trying to fly a Pelican, something I’m not exactly fully rated for, unlike South," North points out, again professional, but this time a touch more annoyed.

"And it’s something that I’m certain you can let Theta watch over for five minutes while we actually fucking talk!”

A child poking at a loose tooth with their tongue. That’s York, through and through.

"This can’t wait until later?" North counters, his voice soft, so soft that he is pretty sure that without the speakers from his helmet, York wouldn’t have heard it at all.

"You know it can’t. Because we both know what comes next."

What comes next is a colony, selected at random. What comes next is standing at the top of the ramp holding a bag of their minimal supplies out to York and having the other man turn them down because ‘South needs med supplies more than I do, considering I’ve got D and the healing unit.’ What comes next is them not looking at each other, not talking to each other, throats tight and tears unshed as York takes that first step. A second step. A third and more carrying him down the ramp and into the wilderness several klicks outside of a city where he can go to ground and get by and survive.

What comes next is another colony world, again selected at random, where he’ll stretch South out carefully in some shade and then work with Theta to rig the auto-pilot on the Pelican to take it up out of atmo on a slowly degrading orbit so that it would burn up on reentry and better hide them while they find another one not so deeply woven with Freelancer tech and markings and probably more tracking software that Theta and Delta haven’t found and disabled yet.

What happens next is a goodbye.

"And just what happens next?" North can’t help but ask.

Maybe York isn’t the only one that pokes at open wounds. But North likes to think he’s doing it so it will scar. Leave an indelible mark deep inside him that will make it feel like York is still there, still poking, still prodding, still feeding the ache in his chest. The churning in his gut. The burning in his eyes.

"We both know," York answers, voice low and pained, and Theta throbs miserably in the back of North’s mind, demands without words why he’s doing this, why he’s hurting all of them. They can stay together That York and North are two that are one just like North and Theta, just like North and South. If you take that two away all that is left is pieces, broken and scattered on the ground.

"It’s for the best," North insists just as low, though managing to swallow back the pain. "They’ll come for us. We both know that. If not for us, then for the armor and AIs. The best way to keep them safe is to not draw attention. And that’s easier to do if we’re separated."

"Don’t give me that!"

His voice is a shout, and North flinches from it, can hear South fidgeting in the background from the volume.

"Don’t give me that," York repeats, quieter, nervous, knowing his mistake. "Yesterday we were…"

"Yesterday you were gone with Tex. And the day before that. And the day before that…"

"You knew I was going, you even said…"

"And if you keep going back until the last time we saw each other, maybe…" North shakes his head, stares at a readout, makes small adjustments. Ignores Theta as his AI whispers for him to apologize.

"Yesterdays are gone," North observes at last. "We’ve got to start living in the tomorrow, York. Not the yesterday, not the today. And the only way that I have a chance of seeing the three of us alive and safe is if we’re apart."

"Then leave South and…"

At last he turns his head, and he immediately regrets it. Because for the first time since they got on board he can see York’s face clearly. He can see how tousled his hair is, something that only ever happened when York was stressed enough to be playing with it. He can see the bags under York’s eyes; North knows he has them too but these are deeper, darker than anything he’s ever seen on York before. Worse, he can see how red York’s eyes themselves are.

Somewhere between when North had gotten them the hell off the Mother and now, York has been crying, and from the glistening trails of moisture on his cheeks, North can’t help but hate himself for causing it. Of course, there’s an equal part of him that is amazed at how level York’s voice has been the whole time. Not a single hitched breathe to hint at a sob. Not a single break in tone except where it had made sense. Not…

No, he’s made his decision.

"I can’t," North counters, immediately looking back at his displays. He can’t look at York, his friend, his lover, his former lover like that. Not now. Not when he needed his resolve more than anything. “She’s in danger because of me. She’s injured because of me. She… needs me.”

"I need you," York throws right back at him, and there is the hitch in the breath, like York’s given up hiding it now that he knows that North knows.

"You have Delta. The two of you will be…"

Broken. Alone. Dazed. Free. Unburdened. Strong. United.

"Fine. But I can’t say the same for South. She’s my responsibility."

"i understand," York answers, voice soft, barely a whisper, barely audible over the hum of the ship, but Theta catches the words and forces North to accept them and recognize them, and recognize the echoing ache in his chest when he realized that York had given up the battle.

North brushes Theta aside again.

"Well, I suppose you’ll at least know where to find me when you change your mind."

He won’t. North is as certain of that as he is of this decision.

He doesn’t look back when he hears York walks away.

He needs to think about tomorrow and the day after and the day after. And not the ache in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Nork Weekend!


End file.
